A well of tears led the words I was hearing from across the table: “I thought following Jesus would make life easier; I thought it would make me be a better person. But clearly what I thought about following Jesus was wrong.” I sighed, empathizing with these shared sorrows, but inwardly somehow rejoicing, too, knowing a new stage of growth was evidencing before me.

Too often we equate spiritual maturity with a life of ease and absence of sin. Too often we assume the “mature Christian” means the one seldom wrought by weakness, fear, or insecurity, ascribing such “fleshly tendencies” as “fixed” and far from the faithful one’s attention. Such is untrue of the Christian Gospel though.

Fruits of maturity do not entail perfection, independence, or a lack of weakness, but rather, realized imperfection, Dependence and lack of solo strength apart from the ongoing rescue of Christ. When talking about true spiritual maturity, we’re talking about inadequacy no longer binding us to a dead-end, but rather, to a Stained Beginning, beckoning us beyond our selves, back toward our true identity and state of Home.